


Eating Me Up Inside

by letsgetalittleseethrough



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, F/F, Hurt, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21724810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letsgetalittleseethrough/pseuds/letsgetalittleseethrough
Summary: "It was a tiny fire, Elsa," Honeymaren had said. "Like, three flames, maximum. We're OK."Elsa is not OK.
Relationships: Elsa/Honeymaren (Disney)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 198





	1. Chapter 1

"Elsa. Did you do this?"

Yelana is pointing at a patch of ice-covered ground. _Who else could have done it?_ Elsa thinks.

"Jorn has hurt his ankle slipping on the ice," Yelana continues, and Elsa's insides twist at the thought that she's hurt someone. 

(Or rather, _someone else._ Her brain likes reminding her that there's already quite a list.)

"I'm sorry," Elsa says. Yelana doesn't ask for an explanation as to why Elsa's covered large areas of the encampment's ground in ice, which is just as well, because what's she supposed to say, "I wanted to protect you all from another fire, and I thought that, since ice melts into water, I could keep everyone safe by surrounding us with it?"

"I'm so sorry," she says again, and with a twist of her hand that patch of ice dematerialises.

"Take care now," Yelana murmurs, not unkindly, before leaving Elsa to her thoughts. 

\---

Ever since the fire, sleep hasn't come easy. She lies awake in the dark, sweating, thinking she can feel the heat of more flames on her face. 

"It was a tiny fire, Elsa," Honeymaren had said, when she found her close to tears that same night. "Like, three flames, maximum. We're OK."

And logically, she knows that only a small part of one hut started burning with no one in it. She also knows - as Honeymaren reminded her with the warmest of smiles - that she was the one to discover it, to put it out with a burst of ice. 

The hero who saved the day. 

Elsa is not OK.

\---

And the worry spreads like the fire might have done. Each night that she eats round the fire at dinner she's on edge, watching the flames flicker and near-hallucinating the entire encampment going up in one big fireball.

She finds herself a few nights later awake yet again, and for the first time Honeymaren's soft breathing beside her grates on her frayed, exhausted mind. 

She dreams of screams and flames, of walking into a snowdrift and melting into instant relief and safety.

She prays to the fire spirits, if they listen, to spare the Northuldra, even though she knows that they cannot be to blame for this - living in harmony they might be, but accidents still do happen.

She hates accidents and things going wrong and people getting hurt and people getting heartbroken and people dying. Hates it hates hates hates hates it.

She wakes from a dream in which she creates the Northuldra a brand new encampment completely made of ice and everything is safe and she can relax-

-to Honeymaren's breath frosting in the air, and her whispering, "Elsa. You need help with this."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The treatment mentioned in this chapter is hopefully historically accurate!

Once she hits the water, calm creeps up on her. It will stay with her until she leaves the sea, and then it will evaporate like water drying on her skin. But some peace is better than none at all. 

It's progressed, this fear, in the past couple of weeks - got even more irrational. She knows that she won't, can't, _isn't going to ever,_ catch on fire. She knows it. 

So why think it?

(Because what if she does? What if it's true? What if it's true? What if it-)

"Your thoughts do not define you," Yelana had said that morning, apropos of nothing, wise and all-knowing as always.

Defined by her thoughts? No. She knew she was more than this. But utterly, completely at their mercy, wrapped and tied under their control?

She takes a deep breath, submits to the sea, where even her broken brain won't let her burn.

\---

The castle used to be a safe place, but now it's colder Anna has candles burning, flaming torches lining the stairways.

She goes anyway, plays the games they always play, eats the food they always eat. She dreams that night of smoke. No guesses as to the meaning behind that one. 

"Elsa… is everything OK?"

And Anna said to tell her everything, and she's here now, in her room in the too-early morning, looking so worried, and she said to tell her everything, no more secrets, so Elsa says it, then:

"I think I need help, Anna."

"It'll be OK," Anna says immediately, and Elsa thinks, _I wish I could believe you._

\---

Blazing row. She's never heard Anna so _angry-_

"I'm not going to - _you_ are not going to - _electrocution_? I don't _care_ how safe you say it is, if you don't have any other ideas I'm showing you the door-"

"I'll find you the best doctor I can," Anna says later, as they sip hot chocolate in her room. Anna puts on a silly, faux-regal voice: "If the Queen commands it…"

Elsa makes herself laugh. If it'd fix her, would this electrocution therapy really be so bad?

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of you wanted a happier resolution, I, however, am apparently full-speed-ahead on my train of angst. But there will be happier moments later on!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long wait! Thank you to everyone who has kudosed and subscribed so far :))

" _I can't do this-_ " 

"Sure you can!" Honeymaren says, and Elsa thinks, in the glow of the fire, that she looks like a monster. 

And the fire, it's- 

"You see, Elsa, the fire is just happily burning away," Yelana says, on the other side of the campfire, but it's getting closer and it's going to hurt everyone and she _can't do this-_

\--- 

"You passed out," Honeymaren says, as Elsa blinks her eyes open. "You practically created a _snowstorm_ , and then you collapsed, and, and I…" 

Elsa just lies there, the effort of keeping her eyes open almost too much. 

"I'm so sorry," Honeymaren says, her voice thick, and then Elsa's being wrapped up in a one-sided hug. "We pushed you - we didn't- I didn't- just didn't think, and then when you collapsed-" 

"I'm fine," Elsa says, for Honeymaren's benefit, and then she's treated to a look so sad that she closes her eyes to try and escape it. 

\--- 

"I used to be scared of a lot of things," Kristoff admits, and he and Elsa sit by the place her brain likes most - the beach, so close to the sea that their feet get wet. 

Elsa marvels. "You've always seemed so-" 

"OK, I lied. I'm still scared of a _lot_ of things. Losing Anna, Anna getting hurt, Anna being sad, something happening to you, I mean, the amount of dreams I've had where I 'wake up' and the past three years were all just a dream… what I'm trying to say is, I get it." 

"Do you ever feel like your brain controls you, and not the other way around?" Elsa says quietly, staring at the water lapping at her toes. 

"You mean like the time I found half of Anna's anniversary chocolates chewed up in my mouth before I even realised I'd started eating them?" 

She can't quite make herself laugh, but her smile says, "thank you, for trying to lighten the mood". 

"Thanks, Kristoff." 

And he doesn't say "what for?", he just smiles, and challenges her to see who can throw stones the furthest. 

\--- 

Her head is quieter that night. 

Tomorrow, she's going to get past this. She owes it to everyone, but especially herself. She'll start with something tiny - she's written to Anna, outlining her plan. One candle in a slice of Arendelle's best chocolate cake, so tiny compared to the campfires she was currently faced with. She'd stare at the candle for a few seconds, feel its warmth if she was feeling brave, and then blow it out, no harm done. 

She can overcome this. It has to be possible. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6,000 years later she comes back with an update...

“You did it! You did it! Oh, Elsa, I’m so proud of you!” 

Elsa blinks at the snow that surrounds her - she’d heard, like someone else was hearing it, the sound of the table breaking underneath the weight of it. 

She can still smell the smoke. 

Kristoff’s saying, the sound echoey and distorted, “Hey, good job!” and him and Anna grin at each other before turning to her. 

She’s safe. She’s in the castle and there was a candle and she put the candle out so she’s fine, she’s fine- 

Her fists won’t unclench. Snow blurs her vision. 

“You did it, Elsa,” Anna says again, softer, and in the corner of her eye Elsa watches her sister shiver despite herself. 

“Let’s get you both out of here,” Kristoff says, and Elsa comes to like someone’s dunked her head into a bucket of water. 

“I- I-”  
  


“You did what you wanted to do,” Kristoff tells her, and he can’t mean it badly, he never means anything badly, but all she hears is “Look what you did....”.

“I think I’ve lost control,” she tells Honeymaren that night, wrapped in reindeer fur because she _doesn’t_ feel the cold, she _doesn’t_ , but her soul sure has caught a chill. “I scare myself.”

Honeymaren takes her hands in her own - hands that are capable of so much, and so much of that bad. 

“No one got hurt,” she tells Elsa. 

Because that’s clearly the best-case scenario these days. 

Elsa dreams of her ice castle, of braided hair, of a sashaying walk. 

Who was that person? 

\---

She hasn’t seen Bruni for a month, and is both laced with guilt and grateful for it. And then she’s sitting round the campfire at midday, sweating for reasons other than the heat, and something crawls onto her shoulder, and she glances down- 

The ice, miraculously, rockets _upwards_ , not outwards, and once again no one is hurt. 

(She terrified the smaller children, though. Isn’t that what monsters do?) 

Bruni lies still for about an hour, Elsa mirroring him by resisting Honeymaren and Yelana’s urge to stretch her limbs and move her body. She isn’t sure she could get up even if she wanted to.

(Murder. That’s definitely what monsters do.) 

Bruni warms back into consciousness, body glowing red, and it’s a testimony to how exhausted she is that Elsa just watches with dim eyes. He’s playful and happy, like she didn’t just almost kill him, but runs to hide when their eyes meet. 

A letter from her sister arrives as the sky begins to darken. 

_I’ve found a doctor who says he can help - Anna x_

At this point, she’d do anything. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> inspired by my current state of "3 tiny anxiety breakdowns a day"... I love anxiety


End file.
